Okay children, we've made it to the Couples Retreat phase – which means hours of unsupervised playtime, no specified bedtime, and a truckload of sugar. So hold onto your bucket hats, find a safety buddy, and get ready to hear the word "finger-banged" five hundred times.

We start off with the most amazing news! Rachel and Steve have… fooled around!!!! Yes, in a real Dear Diary moment, they inform us — amid uncontrollable giggles — that they have officially moved off first base.

"The girls will be excited," Rachel says. "There'd better be bottles of champagne."

"I can tell the boys we've made it to second base," says Steve.

"I don't think he understands what the bases are," says Rachel in an aside.

Truly, my imagination is all over the place. But these two are giving first love, first times — and, like the sixteen-year-old innocent I once was, I am disproportionately thrilled.

Watch: The question of 'sexual chemistry' on MAFS, on Mamamia Out Loud. Post continues below.

From great highs to great lows, we move straight on to Joel and Juliette, who aren't doing so well after last night's detention. Juliette visits Joel in tears to justify her revolting behaviour. She was hurting, you see. Just trying to release her pain. Yawn.

Fortunately for her, Joel graciously accepts her apology — proving yet again that, despite The Bear, he is a bigger man than any of us.

Alissa and David, meanwhile, grapple with Alissa's confession that David isn't "stimulating" enough. David is a little crushed, obvs. Does this mean he's boring? No, Alissa explains, she's just a more "high-functioning" person than him. Which, to be fair, isn't much less insulting. But perhaps what she means is that her brain is chaotic. Like a puppy in need of something to chew, her mind needs things to play with – otherwise her thoughts start tearing holes in the furniture. And as someone who ticks all the ADHD boxes, and whose two children are both diagnosed, I get it.

Alissa is not bored with David specifically. She's just bored. (And fair fucking call – how they aren't all rabid with cabin fever is beyond me.) She doesn't need more stimulation from him, she just needs it generally: a massage for her restless body; maybe some fast-paced, overlapping conversation for her fizzing mind.

Fortunately, she knows it's not David's job to provide her with that.

"I'm gonna do things for myself," she says. "There are other ways to fill my cup." And THIS IS WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT, PEOPLE. This is self-care. I knew I loved Alissa for a reason.

Elsewhere, Stella and Filip address the big heart-shaped elephant in their room. Shaking, he takes Stella's hand. He doesn't take these things lightly, he says, but she's special and…

"I am in love with you." Yaaaaaaayyyy!! Cue the confetti!

And where does she stand?

"Same spot," she says, wiping away happy tears. "In love."

Again, THIS IS WHAT I CAME FOR.

In the meantime, all participants are packing for the retreat. A bit of sun, a bit of socialising. Good for everyone, right?

Yes, as long as Bec sticks to her plan of avoiding drama. "Watch me sink back into the bush like Homer Simpson," she says. "I'm not getting involved in any of it." Uh-huh. We'll see about that.

They're off to a delightful property in Kiama – gorgeous rooms, lovely big pool, rolling hills, water views. What could possibly go wrong?

The boys descend like a pack of hyenas, sprinting through the house in search of the best rooms. The girls trot along after them, trailing all the luggage. The group then spreads out across the grounds, pushing each other on swings and making themselves at home in the peaceful, country setting.

The sun sinks toward the horizon. A kookaburra laughs from atop a tree. "Is that a pigeon?" wonders Danny.

Everyone seems happy – especially Joel and Juliette, who are suddenly all over each other?

"This is genuine," says Joel, his arm draped over Juliette's shoulders. "This is honeymoon version 2. The bounce back of the century."

"I already feel like we're very vibey," says Juliette.

Hold up. Come again? What the hell did we miss?

At welcome drinks, Rachel seizes the opportunity to announce that while she and Steve "have not banged yet," they are doing STUFF. Hurray! The crowd goes wild. Champagne is popped. Cast members are pulled aside one by one to express their joy. Filip and Stella then share their declarations of love with the group. Juliette sits on Joel's knee, peppering his face with kisses. And wait — do we have the wrong channel? Is this a different show?

"This is the country," says Chris. "It brings people together."

Oh, how I would like to believe it.

The first turn toward darkness comes when Bec makes a quiet comment to Steve about what exactly he and Rachel did to further their intimacy. The words are hard to make out, but she definitely uses the word "finger-banged."

Poor Sweet Steve is mortified. "It made me feel awkward," says Steve. "I'm not very open about my sex life." He'd much prefer to stick with the euphemisms, thanks.

Bec, however, has other plans. Standing up, she gathers everyone together for a toast. "We've had 'I love you'," she says. "We've had a couple who I thought would never come back from the brink of hell. And we've had finger-bangs."

A huge cheer goes up.

But Rachel freezes. Despite the fact that she herself made public mention of their momentous baby steps — and even used the word "banged" — this is not okay.

When prompted by Sam to apologise for her vulgarity, Bec says it was only a bit of fun. But Rachel really didn't appreciate their progression being made into a joke. Defence mode activated, Bec accuses Rachel of being "very quick to turn." She then starts yelling. It escalates quickly.

Rachel heads off to bed, leaving Bec screaming into the void. "Who's husband has helped him get there? Mine! My husband got on the beers with him! Look at her, going nuts. She needs to calm down."

Oh, Bec. *Slaps palm to forehead*

"We've worked so hard," says Rachel. "I didn't expect anyone to cheapen it."

I can't help but feel bad for her. She and Steve are like baby chickens: they must be handled carefully. And after a few wines, Bec is like a very loud, very hungry fox who eats small animals for breakfast.

But at the same time… can we get a bit of perspective? We are, after all, throwing punches over the word finger-banged. It's hardly the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Unfortunately, the next day there's nothing to do but keep talking about it. Rachel in particular has a lot to say. In the bedroom, under the trees, by a fence – nowhere is safe from her sadness.

While Bec wonders if actually something really terrible has happened, Danny feels sorry for Steve. "It should've made her happier," he says, mystified. "But it's made her sadder. He's thinking: I'm never gonna finger blast her again. I can't take the risk."

Bec decides she's going to turn the joke into merch: T-shirts, caps, keychains, all emblazoned with the offending phrase. "You're gonna wear it, bitch," she says to Juliette. And I can see why she thinks the Mean Girls are her best shot here, but she really needs to shut up. Especially because she's giving Juliette and Gia the opportunity to cosplay Nice Girl.

"Some girls are just a lost cause," sighs Juliette, shaking her head sadly. "So unacceptable."

"It wasn't nice," says Gia.

Oh, go home — both of you.

We head into the girls' and boys' nights knowing swords will be drawn over this. But first we have to make sense of Joel and Juliette's total U-turn. Again, she says they're vibing. She calls him a "hottie patootie." Joel even says they kissed. IN BED. And I just don't know what to do with this info. Are we being punked?

Steering the convo back to Finger Gate, Rachel confesses that the terribly upsetting events of the previous evening have in fact brought her and Steve much closer. He supported her while she was "breaking down", encouraged her to "breathe, breathe for me" while she sobbed – and even though the catastrophe should never have occurred, at that moment she really valued the smaller, quieter moments with him.

At the other end of the table, Bec's face contorts with unprecedented levels of movement.

Seated around a campfire like a bunch of lumberjacks — because men make fire and the outdoors is their natural domain, obviously — the boys listen as Steve calmly breaks the situation down. And when pushed to decide whether or not his wife overreacted, he explains that it's a moot point. Rachel's response made sense to Rachel.

"It doesn't matter what they think of it," Steve says. "She was upset. You gotta take that on board."

Right on. Can we talk about something else now?

Nope.

Back with the girls, Rachel says she felt humiliated, reduced to the punchline of a joke. Bec says she didn't mean it that way. Rachel says it wasn't the joke that hurt — it was the behaviour that followed.

Wading in, Gia wants to know when Bec is going to take accountability for repeated behaviour. "You can't throw shit," she says, "and not take the full force of the consequences."

I'm sorry pot — are you really calling this kettle black?

Gia then takes great delight in revealing the whole stupid merch gag — and it's a bottle of Jim Beam on an already smouldering fire. She and Juliette gleefully fight Rachel's corner, not because they give the tiniest crap about Rachel herself, but because they're desperate to stand on higher ground. It all gets rowdy. Bec apologises over and over again.

"Aren't you tired of apologising?" says Rachel.

And it's a great point. Bec does this a lot. We're all tired of it. But far out, everything about this scenario is unbearably petty. It's like watching kids fight over the smallest biscuit in the tin.

Storming away from the girls, Bec strides into the Circle of Fire like a demon and drags Danny away to tell on Rachel like it's Year Three and someone stole her glitter pen.

Danny thinks Steve is the problem. "I've helped the bloke," he says, wearily. "He's a charity case." Firing up, he then declares that no one attacks his wife — not without him present. "If you're gonna attack her, have the big boss there. It's like someone kicking your little brother." Apparently charmed by this, Bec plants one on him.

The solution, Danny decides, is the Fight Club version of a double date. "Two on two," he says. "Let's have it like men."

So Bec and Danny go find Rachel and announce — like terrorists — that "they have Steve" and want "a chat."

Naturally concerned that Bonnie and Clyde have gagged and bound her husband, Rachel leaves girls night and follows her captors to a flowery couch, whereupon Danny and Bec pound tumblers of whisky and rip into them Corleone-style. "We brought you here out of respect," says Danny, mere seconds from whipping out a Tommy gun.

Stumbling drunkenly through a recycled explanation, Bec seems momentarily to forget why they're there. They fly around the same topics without ever landing.

Then Rachel deduces that, even though Steve has gone full father figure several times in her defence, he has betrayed her — something to do with a conversation he and Bec had off camera? It's unclear. Regardless, she is very disappointed… in him.

And I genuinely don't know what to say about any of this ridiculousness.

This whole episode has as much substance as a squabble at a five-year-old's birthday party and makes just as much sense. Bec, please give Rachel back the cupcake. No, Rachel, you've already had your party bag, put that one back where you found it. Come on Danny, stop kicking Steve in the shins, it's time to go.

Seriously — if the first 10 episodes took us back to high school, we are now firmly in the sandpit. This cast is ageing backwards like a pack of Benjamin Buttons.

FFS. Take me home, mama, and put me to bed.

Feature image: Nine.